Whenever I mention to people how WordPress has really enabled me to be location-independent and live in various countries around the world, the typical next question is where to search for jobs that they can do from anywhere.

Here are two sites that I recommend, and feel free to suggest any others that have worked for you.

Let’s have a look at some general trends in the real estate market in Barcelona for 2018. This market is very much influenced by foreign investors, so there tends to be more activity and somewhat different prices than surrounding areas that are not much in demand by foreigners.

Rental prices have already reached the top or are already at a level where the potential growth is very low. The prices are far away from the prices of large European cities, but their limit is closely related to salaries (much lower in Barcelona) and these have a limited growth for now.

We still have the problem with Energy Efficiency Certificates not being provided by the owners or showing “in process” perpetually. There needs to be better enforcement from the authorities on this.

While rentals have generally stabilized, the sales market is very active with the highest volume in the last 5 years.

The fastest selling properties tend to be priced in the €400,000 range.

Gmail is the preferred (and free) email address solution for individuals using email in a personal capacity. Everyone should have a personal email address, even if they have additional professional email addresses they use in their business dealings. It’s always better to keep things separate. If your name is Joe Bloggs any of the combinations are great:

If you have a very common name (a la “Joe Bloggs”) you will probably find that the obvious combinations mentioned above will be taken. In that case, you might want to add a number, for example, your year of birth. This is up to you, some people don’t want to make that public so that would not be a good choice for their email address. A favorite number might also be another option to go for.

You might also have a name that is not easy to pronounce, very long or that can be misinterpreted (e.g. Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O’Connor). In such cases, I would suggest you go for something simpler than your name. Here’s when things might go south. The first rule you have to keep in mind is that you might very well be keeping the same email address for the rest of your life, and it’s not that straightforward to change the address at a later stage.

To give you an idea of bad choices people do, [email protected] might be OK for a teenage girl, but chances are she will be regretting the choice when she is applying for a job a few years later.

Physical preparation for padel is very similar to tennis. I would say that padel is perhaps less demanding than tennis; in fact in the top 16 players of the World Padel Tour you will see some players who are noticeably overweight. It’s impossible to see the same thing in tennis. These players are obviously super talented in their tactical acuity and accuracy with shots, and they compensate for their extra weight with these attributes. However, this doesn’t mean that it’s not important to take great care of your fitness and physique if you want to be a top player or just improve at this sport.

As in tennis, your grip is very important as it will facilitate hitting the ball in a consistent manner, thus avoiding the unforced errors that many times are the main factor between losing and winning a match.

Another problem with playing padel is that you will be using your dominant side of the body all the time with your shots. That can lead to imbalances in your body and which in turn leads to a greater chance of injuries. It could also look a bit funny, you don’t want your forearm on one side to be double the size of the other 🙂 It’s therefore important to work on keeping your body in balance. A great way to do this is to use bodyweight exercises or kettlebells. These two methods of training employ many muscles at one go and hit both sides of the body.